


Let the Stone Speak

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Dwarf Who Walked in Dreams [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dwarf/Elf Relationship(s), Fade Dreams, Fade Romance, M/M, Non-Canon Relationship, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Rare Pairings, Solas Feels, Solas is Fen'Harel, The Fade, Trespasser DLC, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 22:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9462851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: With Cadash's Mark gone, Solas can no longer reach out to him in the Fade. But separated as they are, the two men are still very much in love - and perhaps due to that, they still remain connected.





	

The stone is coarse and warm to the touch, preserving the heat of the glaring midday sun. As he stands by the side of the large grey slab, waiting for his agents to arrive with a report at the appointed time, Fen'Harel strokes the roughly textured surface absentmindedly with his bare hand, while the cold blue glint in his eyes, which has so often terrified his foes and cast a petrified, awed daze over his newest acolytes, fades away, and his mind wanders, to the days when he was not yet clad in this golden armour, when he could allow himself to smile, feeling so comfortable, so at ease in the lie that he was wearing that he almost wished it were true.  
  
'So this is how ancient elves recorded their history?' Cadash once asked him, standing in his rotunda with his hands behind his back, his eyes alight with admiration, as he looked over the frescoes that the elf had painted to mark the achievements of the Inquisition.  
  
'In part, yes,' Solas confirmed, not forgetting to add, 'So the memories of the Fade tell me. Much of the craft has been lost in today's era'.  
  
'I understand,' Cadash nodded somberly - thinking, perhaps, of what the Blight had done to his people, and of the memories of the sprawling, glimmering thaigs his new spirit friends had shown him in the Fade.  
  
Then, after a pause, he added,  
  
'Say... Would you mind if I did a similar thing? With the Inquisition's history, I mean? Recorded it in images?'  
  
'I do not hold exclusive ownership of this craft,' Solas replied, with a small smile. 'I would have been happy to teach Sera, for instance, if she did not insist on wasting her inborn talent on scrawling buttocks on important papers. But there is some symbolism to be learned if you...'  
  
'Oh no, I don't paint,' Cadash chuckled. 'I sculpt. Or rather, I think about sculpting. A lot'.  
  
He scratched the back of his head and then shook it from side to side, a sheepish grin slowly spreading across his face, along with a subtle rosy tint of a flush.  
  
'I used to be crazy about carving things out of stone when I was younger. Snooped around a sculptor's back yard like a hungry deep stalker; his apprentice took a liking to me for some reason and taught me the basics of the craft... For a while, that is: being seen around a casteless duster like me would have cost the girl her own caste. I didn't pick up a chisel again for years, figuring that my only tools of the trade would always be a club and a sword... And then...'  
  
His grin reached its broadest, and his flush its deepest.  
  
'Then I met you... The owner of the most beautiful face I had ever laid eyes on! And the more I looked at you, at the way the light just... just fell on your cheeks in these little strokes, with this sort of... soft shadow under your cheekbones and your lower lip... And I thought, "Sod it, I will have to try and carve his likeness... Out of something!"  
  
Making another small pause, Cadash placed his hand on the part of the wall where the coat of paint had already dried, and passed his large, square-fingered hand along the wavy golden lines that Solas had highlighted his fresco with.  
  
'Yeah...' he breathed out, his rugged features melting into a tender look that would inevitably make Solas feel a little helpless. 'You made me want to start sculpting again, salroka... I've tried borrowing Blackwall's tools, but they are meant for wood, not stone... And these ugly old hands would break anything softer than solid rock'.  
  
'They would not,' Solas whispered, placing his fingers gently atop the dwarf's knuckles, large and scabby after what must have been hundreds of fist fights. 'Nor are they ugly'.  
  
Now, as Fen'Harel, he can still remember how it felt - the skin of the man he had unexpectedly, foolishly, blessedly come to call vhenan. It was coarse yet warm, just like the stone he is now touching... No, holding on to for support.  
  
This tactile memory, this last, faintest inkling of Cadash's presence is all that he can indulge in now. When the dwarf still had the Mark, he could visit him in dreams, as a lone, silent shadow, looming against the background of the image that was always there when Cadash plunged into the spirit realm after they had parted ways. A colossal elven statue, crafted with perfect detail out of the purest, smoothest white marble, which seemed to have been tilted off its base by the relentless current of time, and was now leaning against an overgrown granite cliff that vaguely resembled the figure of a squat man with broad shoulders. The streaks of green and brown moss, beginning on the cliff and continuing on the statue, looked like fingers, four on each side, caringly supporting the marble elf from behind while he rested his head on the stone man's chest.  
  
Sometimes, the elven Fade wanderer would pass through this dream unseen, hiding in the shade of the ghostly trees as the foot of the granite rock. And sometimes, the dreamer would spot him, and race desperately towards him, calling his name, sad and angry and elated to see him at the same time,  
  
'Solas you bloody duster! Where are you hiding?! How could you just make off without an explanation?! Why do you keep evading Leliana's people?! They will find you, by the way - they will find you, and bring you to me, so I can... So I can hold you again... Solas, listen... I... I miss you... I miss you so damn much... Please don't walk away - at least not in this dream...'  
  
It was seldom that Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf, disobeyed this tremulous plea of a lost, staggering man that did not even belong in the spirit realm. He was cautious enough never to let Cadash be too certain whether it was truly him, his Solas, his salroka, or just a projection feeding off his memories - but he could not deny him another walk hand in hand through the otherworldly forest, higher and higher up the slopes of the cliff till they found themselves standing on the granite giant's shoulder and looking out at the boundless plane of the Fade, where everything kept changing, melting away, crumbling and then assembling itself again - save for the marble statue and the granite man that did not let it fall into the Void.  
  
He treasured these walks - but now they can be repeated no more. Cadash was dying, his flesh devoured by the flames of the Fade - so, after one last, deep, mournful kiss, Fen'Harel took his Mark... and with it, his connection to the Fade. Now, like any other Dwarf in the doomed realm of Thedas, his vhenan is claimed by dreamless oblivion every time his head touches his pillow. Now, the embracing stone figures have dissolved into nothing, and there shall be no more fleeting, bittersweet meetings at their foot. Now, the next encounter between the Dread Wolf and the Inquisitor will be on the opposite fronts of the battlefield, as Cadash stands firm and undaunted (the way he always does) do defend the warped reality that Fen'Harel seeks to destroy. Until then, all he can do is stroke the sun-kissed rock, bringing to mind the feel of Cadash's skin under his hands, the throbbing wave of pain rushing from his chest to his fingertips, till he can as if the drumming of his heart is being imprinted into the stone.  
  
***  
  
'Remember,' the Inquisitor announces solemnly, looking over his remaining companions across the war table. 'Our goal is to stop him, not destroy him. He needs to be... to be saved from himself'.  
  
'Are you certain about this?' Cassandra asks. 'Are you certain he deserves being redeemed?'  
  
'Yes,' Cadash's reply is curt and resolute, falling heavily into the silence of the room like a rock that is dropped into stagnant water and does not raise a ripple.  
  
There is nothing to add to what he just said; no explanation that Cassandra might deem satisfactory. There is that bizarre tale of how, a couple of night back, he was doing some street-running with the Red Jennies and, still not quite used to handling another one of the over-the-top contraptions Dagna keeps strapping to his new metal arm, and toppled awkwardly to the ground... And then, heard a sort of vague... inexplicable... call... like a song without words, resonating through the soil and piercing him straight through the heart. But that was all a load of nug crap, really: he spent more years on the surface than in Orzammar; his Stone sense, if he ever had one, has likely been dulled to nothing... And even if the Stone did manage to reach out to him somehow, surely She would have better things to do than pass on love notes? Nah, he laughed at this whole thing when Sera showed up to help him get to his feet; and Cassandra will probably laugh too. But...  
  
But damn, even though he cannot explain it, he knows - he just knows, with as much certainty as that five of his fingers can now be taken apart and greased and dusted, that Solas is out there. Hurting. Longing. Needing him.


End file.
